Openers and closers

Many people will tell you that a powerful opening and close of a speech are terribly important and in fact as long as those are good you can say pretty well what you like in between. I don’t necessarily agree. Sometimes simple, unpretentious and honest openers and closes are far easier - and more effective.

The opener and closer don’t have to be earth-shattering, but they do have to be part of you and your material. If you’re naturally a quiet, private sort of person there’s no way you should struggle with a passionate, emotive ending to your speech, even if others think you should be able to carry it off. If a few, self-effacing words of “thanks for listening” are all you think you will feel comfortable with at end of your speech then that’s best choice, because you’re less likely to get it wrong.

Spoken speech

Once you have created a structure and decided how best to open and close your speech, best way to ensure it sounds natural is to switch on an audio recorder, talk through structure to yourself, and transcribe recording. (It’s a terrible job, but worth it.)

Now, edit that transcript and tidy it up a bit, but don’t take out commas and periods. Long sentences in speeches can leave you gasping for breath and losing plot. And don’t add in anything you wouldn’t say in real life. If it sounds right, it is right, and if it sounds wrong it is wrong even though it may look right on paper or screen. Okay, you shouldn’t give a speech in same casual style you might use to tell a story to your friends in changing rooms at gym or 19th hole at Golf Club. But you must ALWAYS be, and write for, yourself and your own personality.

The right style is always conversational. The best speakers always talk to audiences as if they were talking to a friend over a cup of coffee – a natural, friendly, personal style.

Rehearse, rehearse

I don’t want to be depressing, but once you’ve finished all hard work of preparing your material, writing your speech and (if relevant) organising your visual support, you then get down to really hard work – rehearsing. Memorize speech as well as you can, but don’t worry if you forget odd “and” or “but.” If you say “er” and hesitate slightly now and again, it will make your speech sound more natural. What you must memorize perfectly is content, and order.

And then, go out there and enjoy yourself. If you’ve prepared your speech well, you will!

Even if venture is able to attract quality management teams and advisors, it will always be at a disadvantage versus other ventures headed by entrepreneurs who have “been there, done that” successfully in past. To compensate for this, these ventures must really know their customers, know their market and know their competition. By possessing an in depth knowledge of external factors that will effect company’s success, entrepreneurs can both create a solid business strategy and convince investors that an opportunity really exists. If opportunity truly exists, then investors know that even if venture is initially mismanaged, then they can hire additional managers later to put it back on course.

In summary, when students or first time entrepreneurs, begin developing their business strategies and plans, they must compensate for management deficiencies they possess versus established entrepreneurs. By doing this and showing a comprehensive knowledge of their market, these ventures can level capital raising playing field. Fortunately, these ventures can point to a long list of other successful companies which were launched by students and/or first time entrepreneurs most notably Google and Microsoft.